Crossing the Rhine by Lloyd Clark Breaking into Nazi Germany 1944 and 1945-The Greatest Airborne Battles in History

In September 1944, with the Allies eager to break into Nazi Germany after Normandy, thirty-five thousand U.S. and British troops parachuted into Nazi held territory in the Netherlands. The controversial offensive, code named Operation Market Garden, was conceived by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery to secure the lower RhineGermany’s last great natural barrier in the westand passage to Berlin. Allied soldiers outnumbered Germans by two to one, but they were poorly armed against the German Panzer tanks and suffered devastating casualties. After nine days of intense fighting, they were forced to retreat. Several months later, in March 1945, Montgomery orchestrated another airborne attack of the Rhine. This time the Allies prevailed and began their march into the heart of the Third Reich. At once a gripping narrative and a moving testament to the courage and tenacity of ordinary soldiers who are thrust into desperate circumstances, Crossing the Rhine moves at a fast pace, delivers a fresh interpretation of the past, and forces us to ask ourselves just what it takesin blood spilled, in lives lostto win in war.

Lloyd Clark is a senior academic in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Professorial Research Fellow in War Studies, Humanities Research Institute, at University of Buckingham. One of the UK's leading military historians, he is the author of Anzio and Crossing the Rhine.

Unrated Critic Reviews for Crossing the Rhine

Kirkus Reviews

In September 1944, British Field Marshal Montgomery designed Operation Market Garden (made famous in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far), a bold plan to use parachute troops behind enemy lines to help secure bridges across the lower Rhine.